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Cirt News - January 2017, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

CIRT News

This issue contains the following articles:

Faculty Spotlight: Using 3D Printing to Create Custom Lab Tools

Director's Message: Key Issues in Teaching and Learning

Upcoming Events

Digital Thinking: Copyright Resources for Faculty

Best Practices Online: Implementing E-Journals into Your Course

Canvas News

New in CIRT: Fresh Faces & New Equipment

Fact Sheet, Yale University Office Of Institutional Research

Fact Sheets

No abstract provided.

A Poetics Of Food In The Bahamas: Intentional Journeys Through Food, Consciousness, And The Aesthetic Of Everyday Life, Hilary B. Booker

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research explores intentional food practices and journeys of consciousness in a network of people in The Bahamas. Intentional food practices are defined as interactions with food chosen for particular purposes, while journeys of consciousness are cumulative successions of events that people associate with healing, restoration, and decolonization personally and collectively. This research examines (1) experiences and moments that influenced people’s intentional food practices; (2) food practices that people enact daily; and (3) how people’s intentional food practices connect to broader spiritual, philosophical, and ideological perspectives guiding their lives. The theoretical framework emerges from a specific lineage of theories and …

Steinernema Pwaniensis N. Sp., A New Entomopathogenic Nematode (Nematoda: Steinernematidae) From Tanzania, V. Půža, J. Nermut, Z. Mráček, S. Gengler, S. Haukeland

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

A new species of entomopathogenic nematode, Steinernema pwaniensis n. sp., belonging to the glaseri group, is described from Tanzania. The infective juveniles of S. pwaniensis n. sp. are characterized by a body length of 978 μm (808-1131), distance from anterior end to excretory pore of 86 μm (80-95) and a tail length of 87 μm (75-95). The ratios a, c and E% of S. pwaniensis n. sp. are substantially lower than those of all other African 'glaseri' group members. The first-generation males of S. pwaniensis n. sp. can be distinguished by a large spicule length of 92 μm (80-97) and …

Environmental Relocation Policy As Experienced By One Eastern Missouri Dioxin-Contaminated Community, Susan Annette Olsen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research on environmental relocation is scant and narrow, focusing on a few aspects of permanent relocation and social impacts of natural disasters. As a result, little is known about the long term social impacts of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) environmental relocation policy. A combined conceptual and theoretical framework of Walter's placeways; Ullberg's disaster memoryscapes; Richardson's remembrance and memorialization; Dynes' social capital; and, Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, and Pfefferbaum's work on community resilience guided this phenomenological study with the purpose of better understanding competing and complementary roles of each of these constructs in the context of environmental relocation of one …

Juvenile Remains: Predicting Body Mass And Stature In Modern American Populations, Erin F E Pinkston

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

There are increasing numbers of unidentified persons in the U.S. and abroad. To generate positive identifications, forensic anthropologists and others working in the medicolegal field employ a variety of methods to produce biological profiles to match to case files and missing persons databases. Body mass, and stature are two important components of a biological profile, and both can be estimated using regression formulae derived from skeletal metrics. In cases of unidentified juvenile remains, these are particularly important metrics, as it is difficult or impossible to determine sex in prepubescent remains, and the quality of ancestry estimation is currently under debate …

Investigating The Utility Of Rapid Assessment Process For Environmental Development Work Of Peace Corps Master’S International Students, Mariah Maggio

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Peace Corps Master’s International (PCMI) students engage in international development when they assume the role of Volunteer and graduate researcher. Michigan Technological University had the largest PCMI program in the country, with many Volunteer assignments involving environmental problem solving opportunities. Unfortunately some PCMI students have experienced “failed projects,” something not un-common to international development approaches. This research design supports institutional interdisciplinary efforts aimed at preparing PCMI students to engage in productive community development that avoids historic pitfalls of international development efforts. In order to contribute to this effort, the Rapid Assessment Process (RAP) approach was identified as a potential tool …

Public Perception Of Environmental Programs In The Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, Landa De Matamoros, Queretaro, Mexico, Danielle Marie Salisbury

Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Biological or ecological corridors have recently been sought out as a solution to biodiversity loss due to habitat fragmentation. In eastern Mexico, the Mexican and German governments are collaborating to connect fragmented landscapes and Natural Protected Areas (NPAs) over five states across a Madrean Pine-Oak biodiversity hotspot through the implementation of the Ecological Corridor of the Sierra Madre Oriental (CESMO). One of the ways the CESMO is accomplishing its conservation goals is by extending environmental programs that are currently in place within NPAs to other areas within the corridor, but outside of NPA borders. However, the success of the corridor …

Power And Politics In Research Design And Practice: Opening Up Space For Social Equity In Interdisciplinary, Multi-Jurisdictional And Community-Based Research, Valoree Gagnon, Hugh Gorman, Emma Norman

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Working collaboratively with communities is commonly considered a cornerstone of good practice in research involving social-ecological concerns. Increasingly, funding agencies also recognise that such collaborations are most productive when community partners have some influence on the design and implementation of the projects that benefit from their participation. However, researchers engaged with this work often struggle to actively engage community members in this way and, in particular, Indigenous peoples. In this article, we argue that useful strategies for facilitating such engagement are to leave space in the research plan for questions of interest to community partners and to encourage equitable interactions …

Oceans Of Space, Stephanie Steinbrecher '16

EnviroLab Asia

"Oceans of Space" relates my observations of the 2016 EnviroLab Asia Clinic Trip to Singapore and Sarawak, Malaysia. In this meditation, the concept of space serves as a lens to examine assumptions of geopolitical, historical, and philosophical positioning—regionally and globally. At the center of my inquiry is EnviroLab's connection to the Dayak communities in Baram, Sarawak. This region is experiencing dramatic social and ecological change as a result of industrial development. By triangulating my subjective impressions of this space, various knowledge systems, and the qualitative data EnviroLab gathered in Southeast Asia, I aim to untangle some paradoxes that complicate the …

Pushback: Critical Data Designers And Pollution Politics, Kim Fortun, Lindsay Poirier, Alli Morgan, Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn, Mike Fortun

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe how critical data designers have created projects that ‘push back’ against the eclipse of environmental problems by dominant orders: the pioneering pollution database Scorecard, released by the US NGO Environmental Defense Fund in 1997; the US Environmental Protection Agency’s EnviroAtlas that brings together numerous data sets and provides tools for valuing ecosystem services; and the Houston Clean Air Network’s maps of real-time ozone levels in Houston. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews, we analyse how critical data designers turn scientific data and findings into claims and visualisations that are meaningful in contemporary political terms. The …

Gastrointestinal Health As A Stimulus For Native American Attraction To Medicinal Asteraceae And Further Implications For Human Evolution, Christopher David Stiegler

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Asteraceae, or the daisy family, is the largest family of flowering plants in the world, and its ethnobotanical, medical, and economic value is readily apparent cross-culturally. The aim of this thesis is to examine why constituent genera of the Aster family have remained such an integral part of human medicinal plant knowledge, and thereby to reveal any potential physiological, biological, or evolutionary mechanisms underlining human patterns of use regarding the Asteraceae. The present study focuses specifically on Native American plant knowledge made available by the expansive database in the works Daniel Moerman (Moerman 2003). Frequencies of plant use and …

The “Great Flood” Of 1926: Environmental Change And Post-Disaster Management In British Malaya, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This paper is an historical case study of a major flood that occurred in British Malaya in 1926. It focuses on two key points. First, that the magnitude and subsequent impacts of the flood were exacerbated by contemporary industrial, agricultural, and hydraulic practices. Second, that this event pushed the British colonial government toward improving their land and river management strategies over the following decades. This article draws on recent research arguing the importance of an historical approach to disaster, as it enables greater insight into a disaster's causes and long‐term political, social, and environmental ramifications. Focussing on December 1926—a month …

The Tolerance Of Benthic Infauna To Fine-Grained Organic Rich Sediments In A Shallow Subtropical Estuary, Daniel Christopher Hope

Theses and Dissertations

Fine-grained organic-rich sediments (FGORS) from anthropogenic impacts are a growing concern for bays and estuaries around the world. This study explores the relationships between infaunal community diversity and species’ abundances with FGORS in the Indian River Lagoon and its tributaries. To examine these potential relationships, infauna were collected monthly using a Petit Ponar grab at 16 stations in the central Indian River Lagoon from October 2015 to August 2016. Abundant taxa in these sediments include polychaete worms (e.g., the polychaete Nereis succinea), molluscs (e.g., clam Parastarte triquetra), and arthropods (e.g., the tanaid Leptochelia dubia) with densities as high as 5.3x10⁴ …

Fire – The Enigma That Continues To Blaze, Sara Kapadia

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

How did humans first discover fire? What stories do we pass down to explain the discovery of fire?

Using Proxy Records To Document Gulf Of Mexico Tropical Cyclones From 1820-1915, Jordan V. Pino, Robert V. Rohli, Kristine L. Delong, Grant L. Harley, Jill C. Trepanier

Faculty Publications

Observations of pre-1950 tropical cyclones are sparse due to observational limitations; therefore, the hurricane database HURDAT2 (1851–present) maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may be incomplete. Here we provide additional documentation for HURDAT2 from historical United States Army fort records (1820–1915) and other archived documents for 28 landfalling tropical cyclones, 20 of which are included in HURDAT2, along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast. One event that occurred in May 1863 is not currently documented in the HURDAT2 database but has been noted in other studies. We identify seven tropical cyclones that occurred before 1851, three of which …

Facies Reconstruction And Stratigraphy Of A Late Pleistocene Bald Cypress Forest Discovered On The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Continental Shelf, Suyapa Gonzalez-Rodriguez

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Facies Reconstruction And Stratigraphy Of A Late Pleistocene Bald Cypress Forest Discovered On The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Continental Shelf, Suyapa Gonzalez

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Cultural Awareness In Nuclear Security Programs: A Critical Link, Al-Sharif Nasser Bin Nasser, Jasmine Auda, Katherine Bachner

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Nuclear security programs that offer training and capacity building opportunities to practitioners working in nuclear facilities play a central role in strengthening the global nuclear security architecture. There is often a significant divide, however, between both the development of these programs and their implementation, and between the programs’ intended and actual outcomes. As this article will argue, this disconnect can often be attributed to an absence of cultural awareness and an inability for internationally-designed programs to effectively resonate with local audiences. Accordingly, the importance of the role of cultural awareness in implementing nuclear security programs will be assessed, and its …

Baiting Sustainability: Collaborative Coastal Management, Heritage Tourism, And Alternative Fisheries In Placencia, Belize, Eric Koenig

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Local coastal fishers in Belize are adapting novel strategies to manage, exploit, and market marine and coastal resources in an effort to promote fishing livelihoods and coastal environmental sustainability. These resilience strategies respond to diminished fishing stocks, fisheries and environmental policies and regulations, climate change, shifting seafood markets, and expanding tourism development. With growing foreign investment and nationally-directed infrastructure improvement projects on the Placencia Peninsula in recent years, tourism development is shifting toward mass tourism, and local residents are seeking avenues to sustain their livelihoods. In Placencia, the need for effective monitoring and management of Marine Protected Areas, fisheries, and …

Climate Change And The Integrity Of Science, Peter H. Gleick, James L. Van Etten, Members Of The U.S. National Academy Of Sciences

James Van Etten Publications

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by …

Planetary-Scale Low-Level Circulation And The Unique Development Of Hurricane Wilma In 2005, Jinwoong Yoo, Robert V. Rohli, Jennifer Collins

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Large‐scale atmospheric and oceanic conditions in the western Atlantic basin were analyzed to understand the unique tropical cyclogenesis (TCG) and intensification mechanism of Hurricane Wilma in 2005, the most intense Atlantic basin tropical cyclone (TC) on record. An analysis of 850 hPa circulations depicted in the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalysis data suggests that anomalous development of the 850 hPa circulation pattern triggered by Hurricane Vince (October 8–11, 2005) contributed to the development of a large‐scale low‐level vortex that preceded Wilma's TCG in the eastern Caribbean. In particular, weakened easterly winds in the central …

Mathematical Foresight: Thinking In The Future To Work In The Present, Wes Maciejewski, Bill Barton

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Originating from interviews with mathematics colleagues, written accounts of mathematicians engaging with mathematics, and Wes's reflections on his own mathematical work, we describe a process that we call mathematical foresight: the imagining of a resolution to a mathematical situation and a path to that resolution. In a sense, mathematical foresight is the process of imagining a not-yet-experienced mathematical event—the solution to a problem solving scenario, or the creation of a mathematical model for a biological system, for examples that could occur in the future. This future thinking process guides the mathematician's present mathematical activity, motivates them, and bolsters persistence.

2016 Program, Office Of Academic Affairs

Programs

Eastern Illinois University is a community enthusiastically engaged in intellectual exploration. This includes faculty testing the boundaries of knowledge within their disciplines and the boundaries of how to convey that knowledge to their students. It also includes students, both graduate students joining with their faculty mentors in pressing the disciplinary boundaries, and undergraduate students discovering the front edges of the disciplines under the guidance of their instructors. Today we celebrate the full range of such faculty contributions: journal articles, book chapters, monographs, art works, music compositions, performances in all forms, and a host of others. Funded research contributions also are …

Coral Disease In Chumbe Island Coral Park: A Baseline Survey Of The Prevalence Of Coral Disease And Other Afflictions Within Chumbe Marine Protected Area, Hannah Turley

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Coral mortality from disease and other afflictions is a rising concern for reefs around the world. The aim of this study was to provide to a baseline for the prevalence of coral disease and other afflictions, which indicate compromised coral health, in Chumbe Island Coral Park, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Chumbe's reef experienced a widespread bleaching event earlier this year and this baseline study will provide a starting point to see how the bleaching event affected the prevalence of disease and other afflictions within the reef. A baseline study will also allow the park to investigate if their current monitoring procedures are …

Water Current, Volume 48, No. 4, Fall 2016

Water Current Newsletter

Water and natural resources tour examines Platte River basin June 27-29, 2017

Research workshops are local to global; efforts on grants, collaborations continue

Arboretum Annual Report 2015-2016, Glenn Dreyer

Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

The Persistence And Characteristics Of Chinook Salmon Migrations To The Upper Klamath River Prior To Exclusion By Dams, John B. Hamilton, Dennis W. Rondorf, William R. Tinniswood, Ryan J. Leary, Tim Mayer, Charleen Gavette, Lynne A. Casal

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

In this research article, John Hamilton and his co-authors present extensive new research and information gathered since a 2005 publication on the historical evidence of anadromomous fish distribution in the Upper Klamath River watershed. Using historical accounts from early explorers and ethnographers to early-twentieth-century photographs, newspaper accounts, and government reports, the authors provide a more complete record of past salmon migrations. The updated record “substantiate[s] the historical persistence of salmon, their migration characteristics, and the broad population baseline that will be key to future commercial, recreational, and Tribal fisheries in the Klamath River and beyond.” During a time when salmon …

Working Waterfronts: On History, Conflicts, And Finding A Balance Case Studies Of The Lynnhaven River, The Ware River, And The Eastern Shore Of Virginia, Noah Trombly, Derek Van De Walle, Chelsea Wilkins

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

No abstract provided.

The Cosm Newsletter, Georgia Southern University

College of Science & Mathematics: News & Publications (2012-2022)

• Eagles in Training for STEM Careers
• The Department of Biology Welcomes New Faculty
• Biology Alumni Move Onward and Upward
• Georgia Southern's Elite 8 for REU-2016
• Geologists Investigate Salt Water Intrusion on a Georgia Barrier Island
• The Georgia Southern Sea Turtle Program at St. Catherines Island: The 2016 Sea Turtle Nesting Season
• Hatchlings
• The Department of Mathematical Sciences Welcomes New Faculty
• Eagles Win Third MacArthur Award
• Faculty member awarded new Patent on “Engineered lumenized vascular networks and support matrix”
• The Photonic Nanotechnology Computational Group
• Edwards participates in NSF "Ideas Lab" to Measure "Big G"
• Faculty Member Participates in Scholarly Activities
• Professors …